Destroying Meigs Field was wrong

August 19, 2012

Rahm Emanuel is a controlled,
close-to-the-vest kind of guy. Despite his reputation when elected, there are no
spontaneous explosions from him, alas. No colorful sputterings of public outrage
for us in the media to have fun with. Especially when it comes to the various
chronic urban problems created by his predecessor, the unlamented former mayor,
Richard M. Daley. Emanuel has gotten quite good at addressing some inherited
problem while pretending it just popped spontaneously into being, as if an act
of nature, and wasn’t dumped into his lap by the carelessness and folly of his
old pal. So it was odd to see Emanuel this week seem to defend Daley’s biggest
lapse while mayor: the surprise, probably illegal 2003 destruction of Meigs
Field, the city’s downtown airport that . . . well, why re-invent the wheel?

“Meigs Field was an urban jewel and a unique lakefront asset
that will never be replaced,” the Chicago Sun-Times wrote in 2005. “As tragic as
its loss was to the vibrancy of downtown Chicago, worse was the dead-of-night
manner in which Mayor Daley destroyed it two years ago, without question the
most extreme abuse of power he has committed in a decade and a half in office —
well, as least the most extreme we know about.”

OK, OK, it was me who wrote that in the Sun-Times in 2005. But
wait, we’re coming to the best part:

“Even if it were a good move — and it wasn’t — he did it the
wrong way. I might want an omelet for breakfast, but that doesn’t mean I want
Mayor Daley to break into my house and prepare it while I sleep.”

Granted, I’m an airplane fan. What man with a pulse isn’t?
I’ve always rejected the argument that you had to be a bigwig using Meigs to jet
from deal to deal in order to benefit from the field. Many, particularly kids,
liked to see the aircraft come and go. The terminal was a small gem of late
1950s modernism. The place had a lot of history. Going for a ride with Bill
Lear, who was showing off his new Learjet, a Daily News reporter looked out his
window and said that scant Meigs runway looked “like a stick of gum.”

The city has mile after mile of underutilized lakefront park,
and it made no sense to destroy Meigs just to add a few hundred yards more.

So ruining Meigs was a mistake, and Daley doing it in his
I’m-the-King-of-Chicago-I-can-do-what-I-please manner made it worse.

Time is a balm, however. Asked if digging up Meigs was the
right thing to do, Emanuel initially said, “It is right, yes, on this level,
this way: Meigs Field is no longer there.”

But that seemed to be saying that the ends justify the means.
Whatever works, just do it.

“I’ll leave it to others to make that judgment,” Emanuel
continued. “I think it was the right thing to do.”

Which is it? Since I wasn’t there, I thought clarification was
in order. Perhaps the mayor was flustered by my colleague, Fran Spielman — a
no-nonsense, tough-as-nails, Front Page, honed-razor of a newspaper reporter who
will cut out your heart and make you comment on it as you die. If she asked me
the time, I’d start to cry. I thought, to be fair, I had better check with
Emanuel’s office. So he approves of Daley’s most power-mad act?

“No way, no how,” his office replied.

Well, that’s a relief. So does that mean — follow-up question!
— that the mayor is not laying the groundwork for his own extra-legal,
unilateral acts? That he won’t, oh, decide to fill in Belmont Harbor? Because
really, who enjoys that? A handful of rich boaters. That’s all. Why indulge them
when the city could seize the lagoon and fill it in. More campground for poor
kids! And the Water Tower — it really jams up the intersection. Why not pull it
down in the dead of night and reassemble it south of Roosevelt Road, where
congestion is not such an issue? And why go through all the bothersome hearings
and preservationist thumb-sucking and hobbyhorsing that are the hallmarks of a
free country, or were, when a powerful mayor can simply decide it’s the best
thing to do and then command his quivering underlings to see that it is done
while nobody’s watching?

Again “No.” Emanuel is celebrating his ill-gotten gains, but
not the act that got them.

I suppose he can’t, at this point, put the airport back. Too
late for that. And, looking forward, as he wants us to, transforming Northerly
Island to prairie might turn out wonderful. The idea of camping there, with the
stunning cityscape arrayed before you, is enticing. I’d sure give it a try, for
a night.

But I think it’s too early for anyone to shrug off what
happened to Meigs. It was a crime. Daley ripped up the runway while planes were
still parked next to it. It cost the city more than a million dollars in fines,
and sent a chill down the back of Chicagoans, or should have. The city kept
re-electing the guy, and now it’s got another mayor for life, whose office
insists he is definitely not, no way, no how, testing the waters to see what the
public will accept. Let’s hope not.